Meredith Quartermain is a novelist and poet who lives in British Columbia and has been active for over 20 years, having published numerous books and collections of poetry. Her upcoming collection from NeWest Press Lullabies in the Real World is set to be released on April 1, 2020. It is an interesting mix of Canadian history and children’s nursery rhymes — or lullabies — as it takes readers on a journey across Canada. Quartermain also intersperses her writing with classical literary references to works such as The Odyssey and sprinkles of the French language, including one entirely French poem.
The collection is carefully crafted and reads as if written by someone who is well-educated. It is quite clear that Quartermain sees poetry almost as a science, but this has the unintended side-effect of making it lack clear emotion. As the title implies, some of the poems in this collection read as if they were lullabies. But they’re more so the lullaby ramblings of a fifth grader experimenting with freeform poetry, reflected in lines such as: “who said / how long / bridge on fire / just a story / on fire / like your pants / really / really” and “Karoom!!! Gotcha poet / point in a grid, bit in a byte / boo in a boonie.”
While the content reflects an author who is extremely well-educated on Canadian history, I couldn’t help but be put off by the coupling of childish and complex vocabulary, the awkward use of lullabies, and the random and inconsistent attempts at rhyming. The pairing of children’s folklore and intellectual content did not mesh well. Its purpose together wasn’t entirely clear, though it could serve to infantilize Canadian history, or possibly portray Canada in a childish light; which, given the country’s young age could make sense.
From an educational standpoint I would say that it’s quite impressive. I did enjoy the commentary on progress, specifically the author’s comments on resource extraction, the environment, rural to urban migration, feminism, and colonization — though the dive into colonization could have come sooner in the collection, given that it was a selling point on the back cover of the book. Some particularly critical poems were “That I may be a perfect offering to divine Majesty” and “Frère Jacques.”
The latter contains these powerful lines: “the merchants gaining money / Reverend Father gaining souls / and the Father’s judge suitable / till the Fathers take her away… Fathers in recto tono / chant such loving crosses / the earth holds exhausted / earth holds in the snow.” These lines reflect the role the Catholic church played in the early development of Canada, which impacted Indigneous and non-Indigenous Canadians in negative ways, the effects of which are still reverberating today.
Overall, Quartermain’s Lullabies in the Real World contains an extraordinarily diverse amount of history of Canadian people, a critique on colonialism, and portrays the vastness of the Canadian land and cityscapes. I wasn’t a fan of the use of children’s lore or simple spoken-word rhyming, and it was a slow and frustrating start, but overall I would call this a feat of Canadian historical poetry and altogether a worthwhile read.
Darien Johnsen is a UFV alumni who obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree with double extended minors in Global Development Studies and Sociology in 2020. She started writing for The Cascade in 2018, taking on the role of features editor shortly after.
She’s passionate about justice, sustainable development, and education.